WHAT WE'VE PLAYED

A busy night at the club this week with three tables in play. The first table started off with Madame Ching, in this game players play cards one at a time in front of them to advance a ship on a voyage, after playing a card they draft a new card from those on offer.

Board in the game Madame Ching

I have not played this but it sounded like fun with voyages providing many different rewards as well as points for the end of the game.

Table 2 had started off with Martian Dicea simple die rolling game, however as more people arrived the game was quickly abandoned.

Table 2 rapidly moved on to Roll for the Galaxyanother dice rolling game, on a turn players roll dice to make money, explore, build new developments, inhabit new worlds and trade goods for money or victory points. The money is used to buy back used dice and you never have enough of it.

Table 3 started off with a new tile tessellation game called Lanterns: The Harvest Festival. The aim of the game is to collect victory point tokens. On a turn players play a square tile to the central display, the tiles all have coloured lanterns in each quarter and when you play a tile you get a card of the relevant colour for every quarter that you match with another tile.

Close up of 3 lantern tiles

Afterwards every player gets a card of the colour of the quarter that faces them of the tile that has just been played. Players collect cards to make sets either 4 of 1 colour, 3 pairs of colours or 7 different colour cards, these can be cashed in for victory point tiles, which are of decreasing value as the game goes on.

Game of Lanterns part way through, victory point tokens at bottom right

Special tokens can also be earned during the game and these allow you to change one card for another in the bank, however as the reserve of cards is limited you have to keep an eye on them to ensure flexibility.

Table 3 moved on to a game of Citadels, a game where the aim is to gain the most points, the points are shown on building cards the players build during the game. Each player has a hand of cards depicting different buildings, then each round they draft a character card which shows what role they are for that turn.

A players hand in Citadels

Each role gives various benefits and are always actioned in the same order, after a player does their action they may build a card from their hand. Most buildings will have a colour and an in-game benefit as well as giving points at the end of the game, so the sooner you can build the better you will normally do. Table 3 played 2 games of Citadels.

Table 2 moved on to something a little heavier and went for Pergamon, this tile gathering game has some nice mechanisms but does rely a little on luck for gaining cash which is the main driving mechanism for the game.

A couple of exhibits belonging to the red player

It is a really nice game but an unlucky guess can leave you penniless and limited in your actions.

Table 1 finished off with another card game Red7, a game where you play out a hand of cards to rules that vary dependent on the cards played. I like the idea of this game however it is not a game where you can plan in other players turns, you have to wait until it is your turn before looking in to all the options, that for me makes it unnecessarily slow, so not my favourite – but I am in a minority.

You do not have to be quackers to play this game

Last weeks picture should have been very easy - it was the box lid of 7 Wonders. This week the picture is of a fun game that I will be bringing to the club soon.

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